Reviews for Sex and Real Estate: Why We Love Houses

The average rating for Sex and Real Estate: Why We Love Houses based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-02-24 00:00:00 Paul Lubinski Some books are just bad. Maybe the writing is sub-par. Or the ideas are stale or uninteresting. These books are easy to ignore. If you stumble upon one, you feel no guilt over relegating it to a darkened corner, re-gifting it, or returning it to the library unread. Then there are books that are bad despite decent writing and interesting ideas. It is this second category that really aggravates me. Sex and Real Estate, for example, has a provocative topic: the cultural significance of 'house' as an archetype and model. Marjorie Garber can write very well. But these decent components melded together to create a monstrously annoying book. I think one of my biggest issues with Sex and Real Estate is the structure. (If you gave me a box of red pens and a pair of scissors, I could probably make this book 25% better.) Most of the chapters are organized around different metaphors: House as Mother, House as Beloved, House as History, etc. This seems like a logical way to approach such a complex topic. However, Garber never takes time to declare her scope. She does not give an indication of what time frames she wants to concentrate on. Nor does she specify which cultural contexts she will examine. It seems as though most of her examples represent US and British cultural practices, but meshing them together without any acknowledgement is just sloppy. Her case studies are equally slap dash, jumping from Victorian literature to The Housesitter (a Steve Martin movie she seems obsessed with). It becomes very difficult to sift through these disparate, and seemingly random, anecdotes and case studies. Her main points get lost in the ceaseless shuffle of arbitrary references to houses and homes. Sex and Real Estate is also structurally weak because Garber moves between discussions of architecture, furniture, and behavior as though these three areas of research are interchangeable. They are NOT. But worst of all, the actual thesis guiding this frustrating book is not revealed until the very last page. I would not let a high school student get away with that. A bright scholar who has taught at Harvard should be confined in a dingy cell for at least one afternoon for such an offense. Let me explain just why it is so problematic to have Sex and Real Estate's thesis on the final page. As previously mentioned, the book's core chapters seem to focus (if that word can even be used in reference to this book) on metaphors. Because metaphors are organizational patterns that often reflect ideological or cultural trends, this trajectory makes sense. And it was one of the few things I liked about the book. Well, on that last page, Garber states that her whole point has been to demonstrate that houses cannot be contained by metaphors: "Throughout these pages, it has been my contention that the house can be a primary object of affection and desire - not a displacement or a substitute or a metaphor" (207). Really?? Well, why didn't you say so? The oppositional relationship between the 'reality' of the house and its metaphors was never mentioned. Was I supposed to guess that she was trying to deconstruct said metaphors, despite the fact that her case studies all seem to justify those very metaphors?? It was a baffling revelation. And one that makes me reluctant to read any of Garber's other works. It saddens me that this woman has taught and continues to teach college students how to write and conduct research. Either she is clueless, or she's a hypocrite and doesn't take her own advice. Now I have a headache.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-04-13 00:00:00 Diana Odasso Read this some time ago and remember really enjoying it and finding it very insightful. People are indeed bizarre when it comes to all matters real estate. The parallels between "house love " and "human love" will make you giggle. I find the ruin porn of Detroit to be mesmerizing and hypnotic, but am unable to conceptualize the idea of a new "yuppie pornography." And her references to the writing of Virginia Woolf, or one of my favorites, Edith Wharton add a new dimension to my thinking. Oh house, how do I love thee, better than my husband or my child! It is a quick and fun read too.